There's a 'new reality' for Democrats on Obamacare

There's a "new reality" for Democratic candidates with an issue
that confounded the party in the 2014 midterm elections:
Obamacare is no longer much of a liability.

A new survey by the left-leaning polling firm Public Policy
Polling, the results of which were shared with Business Insider
ahead of its release Monday, found support for the Affordable
Care Act evenly split. Overall, 41% of Americans who were
surveyed said they supported the law, compared with 39% who
opposed it.

"Public opinion on Obamacare is pretty much evenly divided
— new reality that it isn't a liability for Dems anymore," Tom
Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, told Business
Insider.

(A note: "Affordable Care Act," as PPP described the
healthcare legislation when testing its popularity, generally
polls better than "Obamacare.")

Polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation has
found that the law, the signature domestic achievement of
President Barack Obama, did not play an overwhelming role in
handing Democrats huge losses in the 2014 midterm elections. Just
8% of Republicans and 13% of Democrats said healthcare was among
their top two factors.

Yet it played significantly on the campaign trail. In the
aftermath of the difficulties with the healthcare law's initial
rollout, Republicans pounced, and Democrats were wary of
embracing the law as it began to provide benefits to millions of
Americans. Many Democrats have said their candidates' reluctance
to tout the law's pros, in retrospect, was a mistake.

Now how the public views the law depends largely on political
affiliation. Liberal voters strongly support the Affordable Care
Act, according to PPP, while conservative voters are staunchly
opposed. A plurality of self-identified moderate voters,
meanwhile, supports the healthcare law.

Jensen said the partisan divide on Obamacare had become the norm
in the firm's polling.

"This is about where it's been over the course of the
year," he said. "After the implementation difficulties had passed
and people actually started receiving healthcare through the
program it got a lot more popular."

It's why Democratic candidates up to the party's
presidential front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, have taken a vastly different approach this election
cycle. Clinton often praises the law's successes and says she
wants to "build" on them.

"We want to build on it and fix it," she said at Saturday
night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire.

Still, the eventual Democratic nominee and the party's
down-ballot candidates will be forced to grapple with what
Clinton referred to as "glitches" on Saturday — rising healthcare
premiums. Though for the most part, those premiums are
increasing at a slower rate than in recent history.